Dungeonquest Review

Recently bought Dungeonquest from Fantasy Flight Games to play with the kids.

It's a fun little romp through a random dungeon. 1 to 4 players try to get in, collect as much treasure as they can, and get out without dying and before the dragon awakens.

I love the random dungeon idea, that's something I've always loved. Warhammer Quest was probably my favorite dungeon delving board game, but it's been out of print for many years so I'm always looking for something new to replace it. Dungeonquest is not that game, but I only expected it to be a simpler and quicker version of the same concept, and in that respect it is.

It's a very lethal game, most players don't survive at all. I had to explain that to my kids before we started so they didn't get sad and frustrated when they died. In the last game we played I fell in a pit trap and was stuck there for half the game, one of my sons died a grisly death from a skeleton in the fourth room, but the other made it all the way into the dragon's chamber. He almost escaped the dungeon, except I convinced him to search the last room, which had unbelievably horrible consequences. He looked so beaten that I said, "well you were going to leave until I convinced you to search, so let's just say you left..." And then he lit up and we all did a victory dance.

There are several decks of cards you draw from in different situations, which makes the setup take longer than I'd like, but presumably gives the game more variety since they can have any number of cards. It helps to store them all stacked in order so you can easily lay them out again where they need to be.

Dungeonquest has one major failing though, and that is their combat system. It's a clever use of cards where you go back and forth laying down numbers, similar to the classic game War, when you win your cards go in front of them as "wounds". The problem is that the turns move very quickly until a fight starts, and then this combat minigame starts and everything grinds to a halt. It can take as long to resolve two or three fights as it does to play the rest of the game altogether. It's a novel system that I could see being fun in another game, but it's way too complicated for this type of game. You will probably want to find a combat variant that moves a lot more quickly. I haven't tried any yet, but I have seen several available. Fantasy Flight publishes a few of their own, and there are more on boardgamegeek.com.

The age recommendation on the box is 13+, but I played it with my 9-year old and he loved it. My 7-year old had a hard time grasping the rules, so I'd say 9+ is an appropriate age limit.

I'm glad I bought it, mainly because it's simple and fun with the kids. Games take 90 minutes or less which is a good length for their attention spans.  It's a nice break from Talisman 3rd Edition, the other game we usually play together.  Overall, I think I'd rate it 3 of 5.


Fantasy Flight Games: Dungeonquest